The unbalanced God

On September 21st was the fall equinox. When the day and night are for the most part, equal. 12 hours of daytime and 12 hours of nighttime. It’s such a nice picture of balance with half the Earth dark and half light with a line going north to south. We like balance, because, well, it’s so balanced. so equal. But the photo of Earth also is a picture of opposites in balance.

I’m always trying to find a balance between the demands of life that often pull me in two directions. I picture a set of scales where what I want to do and what I get done are not always equal. I rarely have an equinox in life.

When I think of balance it’s easy to find many examples of opposites that humans often put on a scale.  We often use terms like light and dark, good and bad, life and death, or hot and cold and it is easy to think there is an imaginary line down the middle where both sides are equal but opposite. With Yin and Yang, or Feng Shui mankind is striving to find harmony and balance with the cosmos. If only it worked.

Many think God is ok with a balanced philosophy but, God is not balanced.

There is no middle ground with Him. There is no Yin and Yang with Him.  He has no opposite. No Equal. There is no Feng Shui in heaven.

Jesus said He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He doesn’t just show us the way, he IS the way. He doesn’t just show us the truth, he IS Truth. He doesn’t just give us life, he IS life.  Anything outside of Jesus is lost, a lie, and dead. That is pretty much one-sided.

When we think in terms like good and bad, light and dark, life and death, or hot and cold it is natural because we live in a physical world and it makes sense to refer to opposites that impact our lives. But in reality, there is no such “thing” as evil, darkness, death, and cold. They were not created and can’t be measured. There is a cool story going around of a young Einstein arguing with his teacher about this. We use words like dark, death, cold, and evil to describe things in our world but that doesn’t make them real, it only reveals what is absent that exposes them.

Darkness is the absence of light, absolute darkness is the removal of all light. The Bible says that it is a darkness that can be felt. God is light and in him is no darkness. Outer darkness is the total absence of God. Jesus said he is life and we have eternal life only through Him. Eternal death is the absence of Jesus. God is good, holy, and righteous. Evil is the absence of God.

For those who say they don’t want God, now or ever, they will get their way. But it will not be balanced. It will be eternal death without eternal life, darkness without light, and evil without good. Everything He created and called good, will be gone. No life, light, warmth, company, beauty, joy, love. If someone doesn’t want God, then they will know the absence of God and all that he created.

Thank the Lord that He will not balance my good deeds against my bad deeds and send me to hell since no amount of goodness will ever outweigh my sin. Instead, he takes my sin on one side, and Jesus on the other.  There is no balance, only Jesus can tip the scale and save me.

After this equal day between summer and winter, I will enjoy the cooler days of fall as we tilt away from the warmth of summer. We have passed that infinitesimal moment of balance between day and night.  I think it’s pretty amazing that my God is not balanced.

Blessings

Natalie